Cottage in the mountains

Last weekend we went on a company break with 18 colleagues to a cottage in the mountains. The idea is for this hard working bunch of people to well and truly let their hair down – which we did!

Highlights were a number of the guys cooking traditional Slovak goulash outdoors over a wood-burning stove. For anyone who hasn’t encountered it before, this is a hearty stew of beef, onions, potatoes, and in this case venison, all served in a thick sauce flavoured mainly with garlic and paprika and thickened with potatoes. It was absolutely delicious!

The following morning, Rob and I returned the favour by cooking English breakfast for everyone, which seemed to go down well.

On Saturday night, we got up at about 4am to watch the Slovak hockey team play their bronze medal match in the Winter Olympics. I don’t really know how familiar people are with it in the UK (I certainly wasn’t), but it seems like a fast-paced, exciting sport, and it only lasts a half hour more than a game of football (proper), so it’s already got an edge over two of the main US sports imho ;-) I may have to go see some back in Washington.

Heading home, we were offered a lift from Jitka & Martin, who I’ve mentioned before. En route, we took a detour to a famous restaurant which is tacked on to the front of a sheep farm, and serves delicacies made from sheep’s cheese. This was the view from our table through a big picture window – very unusual!

The surprises weren’t over yet though. After hearing that we hadn’t yet seen the High Tatras mountain range (despite driving past it twice – once in thick fog and the second time in the dark!), Martin & Jitka insisted they must take us over an hour out of their way to see a famous glacial lake about halfway up the mountain’s 2300 m height. Well, it was really beautiful and to top it off – frozen solid! We walked across it for about ten minutes with scores of other people. A lovely end to a weekend of fun times.

Mark